Joanna Wyld
@joannawyld.bsky.social
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Writer, editor, librettist. Writing a biography of Vernon Elliott.
http://notes-upon-notes.com/
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![Promethean Fire
The second movement’s main theme was written slowly, with numerous versions in Beethoven’s sketchbooks. It is contrasted with a sunnier section complete with trumpet fanfares before the mood darkens again, Beethoven developing anguished counterpoint into a vast fugue. After a massive climax, the grief abates before an outburst of fury. Beethoven seems to be taking us through the stages of mourning; towards the end of the movement, the theme breaks down, its rhythms and textures disintegrating, faltering and halting as though overwhelmed.
The Scherzo is a reinvigorating palate cleanser, fizzing along, propelled by syncopated rhythms, and in the Trio section Beethoven makes the first orchestral use of three horns. In the finale, a theme and variations (two of which are fugues), Beethoven again defies expectation. The opening bars grab our attention, after which a disjointed, playful idea unfolds – more of a sketch than a melody. Beethoven gradually adds layers to the structure as though we are watching a house being built from scratch, its architecture at last apparent in a singing, full-throated theme.
Put another way: in fleshing out this skeletal idea, Beethoven resurrects his hero. Significantly, this theme, and this process, had been used by the composer in his ballet The Creatures of Prometheus, and in his Variations and Fugue for Piano op. 35. Prometheus – half man, half god – defied the gods by taking fire from them and giving it to humanity, whom he also instructed in science and the arts. He was exiled and punished: Prometheus suffered for art. Beethoven may have had Prometheus in mind when he wrote in his despairing Heiligenstadt Testament of 1802: ‘Though born with a fiery, active temperament […] I was soon compelled to isolate myself [...] If at times I tried to forget all this, oh how harshly was I flung back by the doubly sad experience of my bad hearing […] I must live almost alone, like one who has been banished.’](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:yymfozveqau2yamf4ipuncel/bafkreihqjrtdernxqfaj2447ahwislw5tfri6gjocqzskhl6gpqocfurwy@jpeg)
![In Prometheus Unbound, Percy Bysshe Shelley echoed these themes: ‘torture and solitude, Scorn and despair, – these are mine empire […] No change, no pause, no hope! Yet I endure.’
This Promethean experience, then, is at the heart of Beethoven’s Eroica. The hero strives and fails; we mourn his loss. There is a burst of re-creation, and he is reborn, associated with a figure who upholds something infinitely precious: the arts. In the finale, those apparent limitations earlier placed on the trumpets give way to unfettered high horn writing. At last, at long last, victory has been attained – not just by the hero, nor by Beethoven but, in Beethoven’s democratic vision, by all humanity. We endure.
Joanna Wyld regularly writes for the Barbican Centre, BBC Proms, Edinburgh International Festival, Southbank Centre and Wigmore Hall. She has given pre-concert talks with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Philharmonia Orchestra, and has written two operatic libretti for composer Robert Hugill.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:yymfozveqau2yamf4ipuncel/bafkreid7tcytsf3hfcddghixhonxkj3cgru6ccw5vce4c6wwaeg75c7lzq@jpeg)
Reposted by Joanna Wyld
Reposted by Joanna Wyld
Reposted by Joanna Wyld
